GK’s Where Are They Now?: Nubia, Wonder Woman’s Black Twin Sister

In this week’s Where Are They Now?, there seemed an obvious character to dig up – especially if you listened to our last podcast (The Man of Steel Spoilercast).

When discussing the issue of where Warner Bros could take certain DC characters post Man of Steel, there was talk of whether they should cast someone of Grecian decent in the inevitable Wonder Woman role. It was then suggested that the lead character could possibly even be black. When I mentioned Wonder Woman had a black twin in the Silver Age it was met with a confounded response. Not everyone had heard of this, which is how it stuck in my mind as this week’s character for Where Are They Now?

Week 2: Nubia, Wonder Woman’s black twin sister

Who were they?: Created during the silver age which speaks volumes about A: Why such a crazy concept would happen and B: Why barely anyone has heard of her recently. The background of Nubia is that, as the title above suggests, she she is indeed Wonder Woman’s black twin who was made from the same piece of clay. Yet as Wonder Woman was raised by the Amazons, Nubia was raised by Mars and later challenged Diana for the title of Wonder Woman.

What have they done recently?: Post Crisis on Infinite Earths she was re-envisioned as just another Amazonian character with little relation to Diana. Gone was the twin angle. She was also given the name of Nu’Bia because … um … hey it’s comics. But Grant Morrison called back to the character in Final Crisis when he showed us the Superman of Earth 23 who was an African (Kryptonian) American President of the US. On Earth 23 the race roles of characters are reversed and we see a Black Wonder Woman also named Nubia alongside the Superman of that world.

What can we expect next?: In canon as Wonder Woman’s sister this hasn’t happened yet in the New 52. Yet with Wonder Woman’s origin being changed so that now she is a demigod who was fathered by Zeus, this could be easily re-imagined as Zeus having a child with another woman so they would still be sisters. What we do know is that Grant Morrison’s Earth 23 version still very much exists, as Earth 23 was featured as the backup story of Action Comics #9 last year, and included was an appearance of that Earth’s Wonder Woman.

Whether or not DC decide to feature the character further remains to be seen, but it could definitely open up some interesting possibilities if they did.

That’s it for this week, but feel free to drop your suggestions for next weeks character – the more obscure the better.